Ascension Day (56 page)

‘I’ll mark it and put it out later,’ Jac shouted. Jac brought the receiver back to continue with John Langfranc, but he could tell that the desk clerk was still there, as if waiting on something else. And, as Jac listened more intently, the hairs rose on the back of his neck as he heard other muted, mumbling voices in the background. Jac kept his voice low to Langfranc: ‘Are you sure this detective said he’d wait until you’d spoken to him?’

‘Sure as can be, Jac.’ But at the back of Langfranc’s mind something niggled uneasily from Derminget’s mention of hopefully catching a late news bulletin, ‘
If McElroy wasn’t going to come in
’. ‘
Why
? What’s happening?’

‘I’m not sure, I –’

A heavier rapping came then, a booming voice in its wake. ‘Police, Mr Teale. NOPD. We need to clarify something with you, sir.’

Jac’s stomach leapt into his throat. He found it hard to swallow, his voice croaky as he shouted, ‘One minute!’ Then, to Langfranc, an under-the-breath hiss. ‘This doesn’t look to me like he’s waiting!’

‘
Shiiit
! Swear on my life, Jac – he promised. But look, now that they’re there – just stay calm, do what they say. Don’t do anything rash. And don’t say too much.’ Langfranc’s words urged calm, but his staccato delivery screamed panic. ‘Before you’ve even drawn breath at the station house, I’ll be right there to cover the bases.’    

Jac’s whole body started to shake, and he only half-heard Langfranc’s words beyond a sudden buzzing in his head.
Closing in
. His eyes darted frantically between the door and the window.

‘I’m sorry, John, I –’

The door ram hit then, seeming to make the whole room shudder, and Jac dropped the phone and leapt back a yard with the jolt, as if the ram had hit him directly.

Langfranc at his end hearing the sudden bang and clatter as the receiver hit the table. ‘Jac!...
Jac
!’

Jac ran to the window, opened it, looked out. A thin ledge just below the window and further along a flat roof a floor below. But could he cling to the ledge for that seven feet to then be able to make the jump down? And could he make that ten foot jump?

The second ram strike came then, splitting some of the wood on the door frame. Jac slid out the window onto the narrow ledge, swaying nervously after a couple of steps and drawing blood from his fingernails as he clung desperately to the building, fearing with the sudden dizzying blood-rush to his head that he was going to fall. He took a long breath and opened his eyes again, starting to edge along the narrow ledge more rapidly, knowing the room door would burst open any second.

At his end, John Langfranc heard two more door-ram hits before the last of the frame splintered and the door flew off and thudded to the floor. The room was suddenly filled with confused voices and rapid, trampling footsteps, before one voice cut through the rest: ‘
Here
… over here!’ Then after a moment another voice, more urgent, shouting: ‘Hey…
hey
!
Stop
!’ Then, seconds later, the sound of a gunshot.

30

Sirens filling the night. But this time Jac knew with certainty they were coming for him, not someone else or a nearby fire.  

He’d been about to jump straight down from the side of the flat roof when he saw the two police cars only twenty yards to his left by the entrance. One with a patrolman inside, the other unmanned. Jac ran to the right to slip down the end of the flat roof, out of sight of the cars, when a flashlight beam from his room swung across and settled on him, and the shout came, ‘Hey…
hey
!
Stop
!’

Jac looked up only briefly before taking the last two strides to the side to scramble down.

The shot came as he’d got half his body over, kicking up the roof asphalt two feet away, a fleck of it flying up and hitting him on one cheek – Jac jolting back for an instant as he thought he might have been hit. And with that jolt, the last strength went from his arms, and he fell down the remaining five feet. 

Jac half-rolled to break his fall, scrambling into a run before he’d fully straightened. He headed further to the right away from the police cars, across twelve yards of motel car-park – another shout from the police behind, only half registering above his ragged breathing and the blood-rush like heavy surf through his head – then he was into the road, turning right again, putting more distance between himself and the police cars.

More motels. Small apartment blocks interspersed. Further ahead, wooden-boarded houses and bungalows, some with front verandas.

Jac heard the siren winding up as he was only eighty yards along, then the second siren a few breathless strides later. He glanced desperately over one shoulder as the first car swung onto the road, roof light spinning.

Jac became frantic. The street was too open, wide, himself too visible as he ran along. The police car would see him the instant its headlamps hit him.

And he became aware only then of the cool dampness on one cheek, wiping at the blood there with the back of one hand as his eyes darted wildly for options. The sirens were deafening, smashing the night-time stillness of the street.  

A turning on the left twenty-five yards ahead. Would he reach it in time before the squad car caught up? Probably, but it would clearly see him take it, would swing into the turn and catch up with him not long past it.

As Jac came alongside the first bungalows, a curtain was pulled back to see what all the commotion was. Jac’s eyes honed in on a gap between the houses. No gate. The police car had already covered half the distance towards him. No time to dwell on it, no other immediate options. Jac cut across their front yard, heading for the gap.

Old bicycle, dustbins. Some planks that Jac almost stumbled over. A couple of large bushes that Jac sped past, branches whipping back against him – and then he was in a more open lawn area, a fence twenty feet away: six-feet high. Siren closer now, almost alongside. He picked up his stumbling pace and leapt at the fence hard, levering up and scrambling down the other side.

A dog barking almost immediately his feet landed the other side. Low and throaty, menacing. A big dog. Jac’s heart froze, fearing it was there with him in the yard –  but then, with another volley of barks, its front paws hit the fence a yard to his side with a bang. Jac jumped back a step, reflex response, relief quickly overlaying the shock as he ran on.

Sirens paused in the same spot now, taking stock of where he’d gone, a faint flicker of a searchlight spilling over the fence he’d just jumped.

Jac picked up pace. A clearer lawn area, he’d covered most of it by the time he heard the sirens moving on again, starting to circle round the block. A side gate, but only waist high. Jac leapt it easily. But as he burst into the front yard, breath heaving, a couple of black teenagers stood by an old Trans Am in the driveway, surprise freezing them for a second as Jac, six yards to their side, sped past, the shout of ‘Hey, man!’ from one of them carrying surprise as much as indignation: wasn’t often you saw a white man running from the police in this neighbourhood.

Jac headed deeper into the street away from the sirens, some sort of plan finally forming in his mind. He glanced anxiously over one shoulder, looking to see when the police cars would reach the turning, though he could have told simply by listening: the tone of the sirens suddenly became starker, clearer as they pulled alongside the opening, flashlight sweeping from a side window.

Jac knew that they’d pick him out easily – he was less than fifty yards into the road – but he kept running in the same straight line.

Jac heard the tyre-screech as they swung into the road, the stronger revving of engines. But still Jac kept on straight, knowing that soon they’d catch up with him – legs pounding flat out, until…
until
… with one last frantic glance over his shoulder, Jac saw they were already twenty yards into the road. Past the point of no return.

Jac cut off sharply at a tangent again, towards another bungalow on the far side, smiling to himself as he heard the squad cars brake sharply, tyres squealing as they negotiated rapid three-point-turns.

But Jac didn’t run through to the back yard of the bungalow this time, he crouched down by its side gate out of sight, listening to the sirens receding – his frantic heartbeat counting off the seconds until it was safe for him to emerge again. In that instant Jac noticed an Hispanic-looking man eyeing him with concern from a neighbouring window, then suddenly shifting from it, as if about to come out.

Jac eased up – the police car tail lights were just turning off – then ran out again, legs pumping wildly. It was vital he gained as much distance as possible before they realized he wasn’t in the next street. Already seventy yards into the road, hopefully at least a hundred before they caught on and turned back.

Jac listened to the sirens. Still seemed to be the same distance away in the next road. A light rain hit Jac’s face then, and he tilted his head, welcoming it. Felt it cooling his blood-boiled head, felt some of it touch his dry lips.

Some brighter lights Jac could make out now just beyond the end of the road, misty and blurred with the rain. Jac squinted, the lights finally falling into focus: the Toni Morrison Interchange, where Carrollton Avenue and Interstate 10 met, a tangled web of highways and overpasses. And, where the first highway crossed, a barrier that Jac could see at the end of his road where it formed a T. If he could make it to the barrier, the squad car wouldn’t be able to follow him.

Jac looked towards the end of the road. Eighty or so yards. Touch and go whether he’d make it to the end by then? Jac’s legs felt weak, his chest cramped and aching. He wasn’t going to be able to keep up the same pace much longer.

Sudden change in the tone of the sirens. It sounded like they were turning, starting to head his way. Jac pumped harder, pushing himself. The sirens drifted away for a second as they headed back up to the top of the adjacent road, then turned, starting to move closer again.

Jac pushed every muscle to the limit, felt them screaming for release. Sixty… fifty-five yards from the end by the time he heard the sirens spilling out openly as they came alongside the road. Jac glanced back to make sure, saw the spinning glare.

But they seemed to hang there for a second, as if unsure whether he was in the road, and Jac kept tight in by the front fences so that he wasn’t too obvious as the flashlight swayed from side to side, probing. The flashlight finally picked him up, and they turned into the road – but by then he’d gained another dozen yards or so.

Jac pushed even harder, but the more he demanded from every muscle and sinew, the more they seemed to ache and shudder, beg for meltdown into welcome release. It felt like he’d hardly be able to make it ten yards, let alone forty… thirty-five…
thirty…

The sirens pressing in closer, filling the air. Jac glanced back as the first set of headlamps reached him: sixty-five, seventy yards behind. Still almost twenty yards to the barrier.

Oh God.
God
. The sirens deafening, seeming to fill every space in Jac’s head as the squad cars bore down, as if they were about to run him over as the barrier loomed ahead.

But they had to slow down, the front car screeching broadside as Jac reached the barrier and leapt it.

‘Stop….
Stop
!’

A frozen second as Jac glanced back from the few yards of waste ground before the highway edge, already checking for gaps in the traffic to dart across. Car door swung wide, a patrolman tensed in aiming stance, his figure part-silhouette in the spinning glare of the roof lights.

Yet Jac saw hesitation too in the patrolman’s eyes, worried that any stray shot would hit the traffic passing behind; and as Jac saw a small gap in the traffic, he turned and ran through the first clear lane, brief pause for a four-wheeler passing in the far lane, then on, jumping the central barrier – Jac only half paying attention to another shout of ‘
Stop
!’ More desperate now, but less audible with the traffic noise in between.